Recycling Rewards Blue Bins On The Way

Recycling Rewards roll out is starting and blue bins are on their way:  Residents across the Royal Borough will soon be earning rewards and saving money for their recycling efforts as the council's pioneering rewards scheme is rolled out to every household.

The scheme will be phased in between now and early 2011 and the first stage will be under way from next Monday (24 May) as new blue wheelie bins will be delivered to more than 5,000 homes across Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead.

Then, from Monday 7 June, residents in the first phase will be asked to use the blue bin for all their recycling – cans, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard – and start earning rewards!

This follows the hugely successful pilot started last year when more than 6,500 households were invited to help test the scheme, earning RecycleBank Reward Points for their recycling efforts.

Since then
•    70% of eligible households have activated their rewards accounts
•    more than five million RecycleBank Points have been earned for discounts and offers at 106 shops, leisure centres, busineses, attractions and cafés/restaurants; many residents have given their Points to charity and schools
•    recycling tonnages in the participating households have increased by at least 35%.

Cllr Liam Maxwell, lead member for policy and performance, said residents’ response had been key to the decision to make the scheme available to everyone.

He said: “We firmly believe that residents must have a direct influence on council services. The popularity of the rewards scheme showed us that local people are keen to take advantage of discounts and special offers for recycling – and that incentives, not penalties are the best way of encouraging people to recycle more.”

Letters will be delivered to all households in advance of the blue bins in each phase. There will also be an information leaflet delivered with each bin, followed by a RecycleBank pack that gives residents details of how to activate their rewards account.

To make the best use of Veolia collection vehicles, recycling will no longer be picked up by white lorries only, so residents should not be concerned if they see their recycling being taken away in purple refuse trucks. This does not mean their recycling is heading for landfill, just that the collection vehicles are being used efficiently.

Run in partnership with RecycleBank which has pioneered rewards for recycling across the USA and waste contractors Veolia Environmental Services, the rewards programme gives households the potential of earning up to £135 a year in discounts and special offers. The leading sponsor and reward partner is Marks and Spencer but 78% of the still growing list of participating businesses are local to the area – giving the borough’s economy a welcome boost.

The scheme works by fitting electronic tags to the bins with the weight recorded by equipment in the collection vehicles. Residents’ privacy is protected by the fact that no personal data is held in the system and they themselves choose if they want to take part by activating their secure RecycleBank account, either online or by phone.

For more information about the rewards for recycling scheme visit www.RecycleBank.com, www.veolia.co.uk or www.rbwm.gov.uk/recyclebank